Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To have told my late teens that I won't be contributing

605 replies

itspurplestripes · 05/02/2024 14:58

.. to their childcare arrangements , if and when they have kids. They were really surprised!
Lone parent here, working full time and intend to retire in about ten years. Ie I'll be relatively young.
It was a light conversation but they fully thought that I would be a part of their childcare set up in time.
I will f course be supportive and help
Out when needed and look forward to

Spending time with my grandkids but travel and renewing relationships and rest are certainly at the top of my list !
AIBU. Or is this the norm/ expectation now?

OP posts:
DonnyBurrito · 05/02/2024 20:36

Newchapterbeckons · 05/02/2024 20:20

I would be happy to help a bit, but I saw something so scary the other day driving dd home it’s burnt into my brain. There was a struggling couple 70yrs odd at a guess, struggling with loads of school bags and pe kits looking utterly bewildered as three children youngest a toddler upwards to school age running so fast headlong towards a main road!! My heart stopped in my chest. The gps hadn’t really even clocked what was happening and had NO CHANCE of catching up, the cars thankfully came to a standstill but they didn’t need to (and usually wouldn’t, some people are idiots)

I wondered what on earth the parents would think if they had seen it.

I won’t be making any promises until I know I have the fitness and wherewithal to care for gc properly. So many seem to look overwhelmed and exhausted, and quite frankly are so kind to offer but too old for the job. We were not designed to raise toddlers as pensioners!

I've seen this before too! Toddlers running towards roads and their grandparents unable to catch them 😰 I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my toddler with anyone who doesn't currently have a toddler! You've gotta be sharp as a tack...

Gymmum82 · 05/02/2024 20:37

My mum said the same thing. Absolutely no childcare and certainly no childcare for you to holiday without the children.
So far she looks after mine every school holiday, my sisters regularly every week and she’s had mine for 2 child free holidays. You don’t know how you’ll feel until they are here and apparently the love for her grandchildren is greater than the love of a child free retirement 🤷‍♀️

BombaySamphire · 05/02/2024 20:38

Were they looked after by your parents, op?
Mine weren’t, so I’m pretty sure they’ve no such expectation themselves.
I might be in for a surprise, though…

Newchapterbeckons · 05/02/2024 20:40

DonnyBurrito · 05/02/2024 20:36

I've seen this before too! Toddlers running towards roads and their grandparents unable to catch them 😰 I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving my toddler with anyone who doesn't currently have a toddler! You've gotta be sharp as a tack...

Show quote history

Yes that’s so right. Toddlers are so fast once mobile and you need constant supervision and eyes at the back of your head. They needed to at least be strapped into a pushchair!

I just don’t think I could risk it…

Thecurtainsarewonky · 05/02/2024 20:43

So, we have the reverse. DM never explicitly said she would look after our children, but I always kind of assumed she would. We lived 200 miles away when DGD was born and DM offered to travel weekly to look after DGD on the 3 successive days I worked. When 2nd grandchild arrived we decided this was too much and got a nanny. 6 years later we relocated to be near DM. A factor was the promise of childcare- but then dc we’re at a prep school, so the childcare was drop off at 8am and 5pm pick up 2-3 days a week. But it turned out that DM had swimming classes and yoga and art and a long list of other social activities that she was apparently happy to give up to do a weekly 400 mile round trip and live in our house for 3 days, but not when we lived 10 minutes down the road. 6 months after we moved we got a nanny who could organise her social life outwith the 3 hours a day I need childcare. (Should add…..very happy for DM to have an active social life and also happy if she had said she didn’t actually want to do childcare but very unhappy that we relocated for promised childcare that became so ad hoc it was completely unworkable).

Tenyold · 05/02/2024 20:44

Tenyold · 05/02/2024 20:35

Probably not much to add here after all these pages! But my MIL said it to me when I was pregnant. I found it really annoying tbf. I didn’t want her to contribute at all; but it was the way she said it. I didn’t ask for anything, and definitely did not want anything and she came out with “I won’t be doing childcare for that baby when it’s born. I’ll babysit from time to time, but I don’t want to do regular childcare”. She repeated it several times throughout my pregnancy. Felt really brash and abrupt and also bizarre of her to think I’d want her to!

I was, in fact, a little offended that she thought I’d ask so had to shoot me down in advance. Mil is one of the most annoying, neggy people I know. I did not want her negging away at my child on the regular!

OP - I can’t think why on earth you said it to your children in their late teens. Unless you wanted to complain about parenting them. I think MIL said it to me (in front of DH) as a dig to how much she hated raising DH.

Just to follow on from this. Ds is almost 10. Mil thinks he’s the best person in the world and is always asking to have him. I generally say no thanks because I don’t need a babysitter very often and DS thinks being at hers is okay, but that MIL is always telling him he’s messy etc.

We almost moved far away and she got very upset about that.

Yet when I was pregnant had to repeatedly tell me how little she wanted to look after “that baby”.

All this feels pointless, op, and you risk alienating your children a bit. Wait for them to (maybe!) ask you, then gently explain no. Chances are, they won’t. Didn’t cross my mind to use either parents as a regular childcare solution - felt like more hassle than it was worth with commuting here etc. Plus that’s what nursery was for.

PurpleNebula84 · 05/02/2024 20:44

I'll be doing everything I can to help my daughter... My parents relied on my grandad when me and my brother were kids as the business they had involved a lot of evening and weekend work... My parents have helped me massively and my dad still does since my mum died 5 months ago.
I'd massively struggle without his help... I use paid childcare as much as I can, but I am a single parent and also work shifts and sometimes paid childcare is just not available when I need it.
Helping my daughter the way family has for me and my parents is my way of paying it back.

Bluevelvetsofa · 05/02/2024 20:50

If you work full time, you can’t look after your grandchildren too, other than on an ad hoc basis. Many people will be working full time for longer than they perhaps anticipated and when they do retire, it might be that they don’t have the energy, being so much older.

Icantbedoingwithit · 05/02/2024 20:50

Restinpeacefavouritecoathanger · 05/02/2024 19:00

My DD is currently one year old and goes to my mother in law four days a week 6-3 to allow me to work, for this we pay her a small amount (approx 1/3rd nursery) as this allowed her to give a morning job up. She has pretty much said she couldn't do it again and we know it's unlikely we will be able to have another based on the childcare costs at nursery.
I know my feelings might change once the difficulty of the first years are over but I've already said I want to be in the right position to be able to contribute to childcare costs but I couldn't do what my MIL does.

I think that is very sad. You drop your child to your MIL at 6 am four days a week. She has made noises that she is not able for it and you admit you couldn’t do what she does and yet you still send her. God love that poor woman.

SheJustStressesMeOutSoMuch · 05/02/2024 20:51

I can't wait to be a GP and I will help out if they let me.
I've had zero help with my DC on either side and at times it has been a major struggle. I've had to get friends to help me or just suffer on through.

I won't leave my DC to just get on with it if I can help.

LuckySantangelo35 · 05/02/2024 20:51

At least no one is telling you OP that you simply MUST provide childcare otherwise your offspring will go non contact with you and withhold contact with the grandkids and chuck you in a home. That’s often the response women get on here

MammaTo · 05/02/2024 20:53

This thread makes me think of a saying I heard “raise your kids right and you can spoil your grandkids, spoil your own kids and you’ll be raising your grandkids”.

My parents and in laws actively want to have my little one, a day or 2 a week and we choose to put him into nursery a few days too, to give them a break because he’s a lot - but we could give baby to GP’s 5 days a week so that we’re not taking the piss.

boozeclues · 05/02/2024 20:56

Same, my in laws do so much for us as a family as they got to retire at 65 from civil servant jobs, with massive pensions. AND they had a full time nanny until my DH was like 16..

i am truly thankful for their help, but comparing their lives to mine is just not even possible..

I feel older than them most days (private sector but working for the public sector) I am shattered. I probably will be able to retire not too much older than them, but I plan to sleep, eat well and spend half my time abroad somewhere. I am done raising kids, working and answering to anyone but myself, at age 65 I will be well and truly over it!

DillDanding · 05/02/2024 21:06

My parents were still working when all their first 6 grandchildren were young. I’m much younger than my siblings and when my children came along, my parents were retired. I only worked 2 days pw, but my parents were thrilled to do childcare for one of those days (a sister did the other). It resulted in my parents being exceptionally closer to my children than to their other grandkids, and it was a wonderful thing on all sides. My children have nothing but fond memories and I got to see a lovely side to my parents who were much more demonstrative and loving towards my children than they had been to me. I think because my kids constantly flung their arms around them and told them they lived them, they responded in kind.

I would not have worked without parental support and I’m really grateful for it and the close ties it fostered.

luluhi · 05/02/2024 21:06

lol at all the “I’ve done my time” comments on here. Why bother having children at all if it’s that much of a prison sentence 😂

DragonFly98 · 05/02/2024 21:08

I really don't understand all the "done my time comments" surely raising children is enjoyable not something to be endured. But then when my youngest is 18 I will have been raising my own children for 43 years. So yes I will also want to care for my grandchildren because I don't see it as a chore.

LakeTiticaca · 05/02/2024 21:19

shepherdsangeldelight · 05/02/2024 15:11

If I told my late teens that I wouldn't be helping them out with future childcare, they would both look at me as though I was mad.

Thoughts of children, let alone how said children will be cared for, are not things that have crossed their minds!

Why did your teens assume this? Did their own grandparents look after them a lot?

My mother announced to me she wouldn't be looking after my children while I went out to work. I was about 14 at the time. I actually looked around the room to see who she was addressing, but there was nobody else there so I assumed she was addressing me!! 🤔🤔

theduchessofspork · 05/02/2024 21:21

Always good to set out your stall early

I don’t think g/parent care is the norm but it’s more common than it was

plinkypink · 05/02/2024 21:23

Shodan · 05/02/2024 19:46

There's a very transactional vibe to some of the posts on this thread.

Grandparents will only have a close relationship with the grandchildren if they do regular childcare.
Grandparents can't expect any help in their old age if they don't do regular childcare.

I'm very glad my children aren't so unpleasant. Strange as it may seem, it would make me less inclined to help my children out with their children if they held such opinions.

I think of it more as prioritisation. Parents are stretched - there's not room for much in those early years, especially if they have no help with childcare. Fine that grandparents don't prioritise helping but that likely means the parents will have to prioritise working full time to pay for childcare, or perhaps they'll have to prioritise the children building a relationship with the other set of grandparents if they're helping with care.

Also, people aren't saying that grandparents are deliberately cut off - more that they naturally don't form a close relationship with they're GC if they're not regularly involved (I'd call regularly once a week). How can you fork a close relationship without regular contact and one to one time?

Btw I'm not suggesting 5 days a week - I think this thread has turned into all or nothing. But there are plenty of grandparents here saying they wouldn't do 1 day a week which boggles my mind (if they're fit and healthy enough).

Tbh there's a vibe on this thread of grandparents prioritising themselves and picking and choosing their involvement but relationships don't work like that - it's not transactional necessarily but overall all relationships are based on give and take.

telestrations · 05/02/2024 21:23

I would never expect my parents or in-laws to provide full time childcare unless there was no other choice to keep them fed, housed and well, which I don't expect to happen. I do expect a guest any guest to chip in if staying with a young family.

Given this my Dad's light-hearted comment to not expect him to change a nappy as "he'd done all of that" with a chuckle on the eve of my wedding was responded to with well that's your right but don't expect first visit left his jaw on the table. More so then I expected. I don't know what else was.

I would add that it is a luxury for grandparents to not have to help with children, and children not help their parents. In most countries it's a matter of survival.

theduchessofspork · 05/02/2024 21:23

DragonFly98 · 05/02/2024 21:08

I really don't understand all the "done my time comments" surely raising children is enjoyable not something to be endured. But then when my youngest is 18 I will have been raising my own children for 43 years. So yes I will also want to care for my grandchildren because I don't see it as a chore.

It’s enjoyable in large parts (a lot of it is boring too)

Most people have a couple of kids and raise them in 20 years - that’s pretty full on, they don’t want to parent for 40 years or raise their grandchildren

There are many other things to do in life.

Fleetheart · 05/02/2024 21:24

Couldn’t agree more; such hard work and maybe it has felt a lot harder being a single mum, but the last thing I want to do is be tied to the house again - it’s my nightmare as I am at last starting to be a bit freer!

Icantbedoingwithit · 05/02/2024 21:26

DragonFly98 · 05/02/2024 21:08

I really don't understand all the "done my time comments" surely raising children is enjoyable not something to be endured. But then when my youngest is 18 I will have been raising my own children for 43 years. So yes I will also want to care for my grandchildren because I don't see it as a chore.

Yes it’s fine when you have youth, energy and health.

Hocuspocusnonsense · 05/02/2024 21:28

I fully hope to still be young enough, fit and able to help my children. I suspect I will be mid 60s+.

I have 3 children and I don’t have any family help. I see so many children being collected from school by grandparents. I hear mums talk about evenings out and nights away because grandparents are helping out. I don’t have that. I want my children to have that. I know what a difference it makes.

HrtIsItWorking · 05/02/2024 21:32

@Hocuspocusnonsense but no one is saying that they won't do anything for their DC when they have children, just that they don't want to be trapped in a regular arrangement that may mean that for the last couple of healthy years of their lives they cannot explore their own interests in whatever timeframe they choose after raising their own family and working to retirement age.